A serious problem in electric power generation in connection with the ever-increasingly-sized power grids of the electric utility systems is that of untimely and expensive generator outages in one of the generators within the power grid.
An electrical power generator receives prime mover rotational force that rotates a coil of wire relative to a magnetic field or vice versa. In electrical generators, this magnetic field is generated using electromagnets known as field coils. An electrical current in these field coils provides the magnetic field necessary to induce an electrical current in the main generator coil to produce the generated power for delivery to the power grid.
Operators of reactive or voltage/ampere/reactive (VAR) generators must develop voltage and reactive planning and operating practices and procedures to ensure that they have sufficient reactive resources, voltages and reactive margins available for supplying AC energy to the power grid. As has been experienced in the past with power grids, an unplanned generator outage can have a negative effect to the entire power grid and can result in rolling blackouts. While standards have been developed by industry organizations such as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) for voltage and reactive control and planning, such standards only provide for planning, design and operation of a generator within the power grid and do not address preventive maintenance or the forecasting of potential faults in the generator, such as turn-to-turn shorts in the field winding. As such, the inventor hereof has identified a need for a system and method that can detect incipient failures or faults of a generator to enable an operator to plan and implement maintenance on the generator to prevent unplanned generator outages.